By CHAD DUNDAS of the Missoulian
Kelly Rice wasn't overly impressed.
It could've been better, she thought.
“I mean, it's alright,” Rice said, while considering a 38 minute, 20.8 second finish that gave her the women's win in the YMCA Riverbank Run's 10-kilometer leg on Saturday. “It's good for now. I haven't been running too much so it felt good Š (I'd like to be) a little bit faster.”
Spoken like a true runner - one who used to handle middle distance races for the Grizzlies and at one time held the school record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase - and also like a true coach.
Rice, who finished nearly 36 seconds ahead of her next best competition in that race, had to skedaddle after the 10k to catch up with her charges on the high school track team from Florence, where she coaches the distance runners.
Without her in the field for the 5k, Kalispell's Jamie Schuster broke the proverbial tape for the women, finishing at 18:41.6. That was just over five seconds in front of Missoula's Trisha Miller in second at 18:46.8 and Jenny Newton at 18:56.0 in third.
Newton, who was also first among women in last July's Missoula Marathon, went on to win the women's trifecta competition, with Miller in second and Schuster in third.
Schuster said she took part in the trifecta competition - running all three races back-to-back - because it seemed like a good opportunity to train for this year's marathon.
“It was good,” Schuster said about running the 5k just a half hour or so after finishing fourth in the 10k. “I wasn't in as much pain as I thought I'd be after running the 10k. I still finished strong.”
The three top placers were among the 3,000-plus runners that turned out for the 36th installment of the yearly race.
Even with a near-record crowd and some blistering times being turned in in the events, the talk of the Bankrun was the balmy weather. After a week of topsy-turvy spring conditions, Saturday went according to plan, with sunny skies and highs cresting 50 degrees.
“It was gorgeous, I can't believe the weather ... ,” Rice said. “It felt really good, it's such a beautiful day. It's perfect running weather right now.”
First across the finish line in the men's 10k was Great Falls native-turned-Missoulian Zack Strong, finishing with a time of 31:48.7, coming in 14 seconds in front of local Jason Walker at 32:02.8 and Bozeman's Kurt Michels at 32:27.6.
All three were also competing in the trifecta.
“I'm pretty happy with that (time),” Strong said immediately following the 10k. “Especially with a couple more (races) coming up.”
The trio finished in the same order atop the 5k, but neither Strong nor Walker were listed in the final results for the trifecta. Representatives of the official timekeepers, Bozeman's Perfect Timing, weren't sure as of Saturday night if there were scoring errors in the final, one mile leg of the trifecta.
As it stood, Michels was credited with the win in the three-pronged competition. Missoula's Casey Jermyn was second, with Stevensville's Colin Fehr third.
Aside from a possible snafu in the trifecta, the first year of using microchip timers to track the statistics of the individual runners was a great success, YMCA Associate Executive Director Jason Shearer said. Results from each run were posted near the finish line in just a few minutes after the event ended.
“The chip timing was fantastic,” Shearer said. “We were able to have results immediately when runners crossed the finish line. We had to wait about 15 minutes to get results for the trifecta, but we had results for the 5k and 10k runs before the 1 mile was even over.”
Shearer said the YMCA didn't have an exact count of the people who participated in the run. He said race officials ran out of official numbers for the 5k and the one-mile fun run, but signed a sizeable group up to run in an unofficially, untimed capacity.
“We were blessed with great weather,” Shearer said. “We got more runners than you could shake a stick at.”
YMCA Riverbank Run
Top 10 finishers
Women
5k - 1, Jamie Schuster, Kalispell, 18:41.6; 2, Trisha Miller, Missoula, 18:46.8; 3, Jenny Newton, Missoula, 18:56.0; 4, Jessica Johnson, Bigfork, 19:05.8; 5, Eva Dunn-Froebig, Missoula, 19:33.5; 6, Hailey Jacobson, Missoula, 19:42.8; 7, Julie Vetter, Missoula, 19:50.5; 8, Patty Kent, Missoula, 20:09.3; 9, Paige Gilchrist, Ovando, 20:59.6; 10, Marnie Di Chiaro, Missoula 21:21.9.
10k -1, Kelly Rice, Missoula, 38:20.8; 2 ,Jenny Newton, Missoula, 38:56.0; 3, Trisha Miller, Missoula, 39:25.5; 4, Jamie Schuster, Kalispell, 39:51.0; 5, Jessica Johnson, Bigfork, 40:08.2; 6, Sarah Bard, Missoula, 40:42.5; 7, Jennifer Paisley, Missoula, 41:08.8; 8, Vicky Pounds, Missoula, 41:09.5; 9, Rye Palen, Missoula, 41:31.6; 10, Erin Noonan-Wright, Missoula, 41:38.1.
Trifecta - 1, Jenny Newton, Missoula, 1:03:54.0; 2, Trisha Miller, Missoula, 1:04:01.4; 3, Jamie Schuster, Kalispell, 1:04:16.9; 4, Sarah Bard, Missoula, 1:06:04.4; 5, Rye Palen, Missoula, 1:07:24.7; 6, Lauren Fern, Missoula, 1:10:01.6; 7, Jennifer Sauer, Missoula, 1:12:10.7; 8, Mary Pat Osler, Stevensville, 1:12:40.9; 9, Riki Peacock, Missoula, 1:13:15.3; 10, Sara McDermott, Missoula, 1:14:26.8.
Men
5k - 1, Zack Strong, Missoula, 15:03.3; 2, Jason Walker, Missoula, 15:18.3; 3, Kurt Michels, Bozeman, 15:39.0; 4, Philip Keller, Missoula, 15:54.7; 5, Mike Wolfe, Missoula, 16:07.7; 6, Grant Casey, Missoula, 16:15.3. 7, Gilroy Ray, Missoula, 16:27.0 8, Nephew Clothboy, Missoula, 16:28.2; 9, Michael La Forest, Missoula, 16:30.7; 10, Thomas Everett, Missoula, 16:36.0.
10k - 1, Zack Strong, Missoula, 31:48.7; 2, Jason Walker, Missoula, 32:02.8; 3, Kurt Michels, Bozeman, 32:27.6; 4, Jimmy Grant, Missoula, 32:39.6; 5, Philip Keller, Missoula, 33:04.0; 6, Mike Wolfe, Missoula, 33:22.1; 7, Casey Jermyn, Missoula, 34:01.5; 8, Kyle Hummel, Missoula, 34:03.5; 9, Brandon Fuller, Missoula, 34:12.3; 10, Josh Alexander, Hamilton, 36:05.3.
Trifecta - 1, Kurt Michels, Bozeman, 53:01.5; 2, Casey Jermyn, Missoula, 56:01.6; 3, Collin Fehr, Stevensville, 58:04.0; 4, Josh Alexander, Hamilton, 58:24.3; 5, Josh Mietz, Missoula, 59:26.2; 6, Jesse Carnes, Missoula, 59:41.0; 7, Michael Yager, Missoula, 1:00:26.4; 8, Chris Tippett, Butte, 1:00:39.7; 9, Jerome Steen, Missoula, 1:01:32.7; 10, Jay Barlow, Missoula, 1:02:19.0.
Corporate challenge - 1, Runners Edge, 2,911; 2, Early Risers, 2,628; 3, Boone Karlberg 2,601.
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